


Baubles and Reflections

by illegible



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, written for a prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 02:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14155116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illegible/pseuds/illegible
Summary: Merrill has had an unusual relationship with mirrors.





	Baubles and Reflections

Merrill has had an unusual relationship with mirrors since losing (sacrificing) her clan at Sundermount, catches herself lingering and straining for something deeper than they show. At first she keeps them from her home, the makeshift aravel she’s made to draw city-elves from Kirkwall.

 _Blood from a wound._  
  
She teaches them the way she would have taught her own people, and it feels right because in the end _aren’t_ they now?  
  
Trailing across the Free Marches, Yeriel who escaped the Circle, who met her with bruises at his throat and scars that hurt to see, Yeriel told her she looked terrible. Merrill smiled gently and kissed his forehead (her First), said “I suppose I’ll have to work on that, won’t I?”  
  
So she buys a looking glass and sets it over her washbasin.  
  
The woman who stares back has eyes too big for her face, sharp cheekbones, tangled hair that wants cutting. She is pale and drawn and chip-nailed, and she needs something more to see herself properly.  
  
Piece by piece, like a myna bird, she begins to collect baubles and reflections. Maybe this is a punishment she deserves. Maybe it's only a reminder.  
  
She only suspects the eluvian at first, clean and sleeping and smaller than the one she shattered. It’s barely taller than she is, bordered as if by lace rust creeping in at the edges. She recognizes the elven designs, and while something inside her screams in protest most of her only finds a wistful comfort staring back.  
  
It will be safer in her company. She has no plans for experimentation now, no future she can see.  
  
The eluvian didn’t take Marethari, after all. That was the price Merrill paid for knowledge when knowledge wasn't what she wanted at all. Acceptance, an adopted sister her clan saw no differently from themselves. Something beyond her abilities.  
  
Yellow eyes glint from silver occasionally, when it is very dark and she finds herself not entirely awake. They hold caution instead of malice, which is well enough. Merrill who has silenced herself to the world, who listens to her new companions and eases their fears without voicing her own, begins to confide.  
  
It could be a spirit. It could be her imagination. Talking strikes no bargain, holds no risk.  
  
Sometimes, struggling to learn recipes for healing potions, she’ll catch a voice humming softly across the room. There is an accent to it she can’t place, almost Ferelden but older. Once, she finds a window where her own body should be.  
  
A woman reclines in her wooden chair, reading from a hide-bound book. Black wisps stray from her bun and weariness lines her face. The red shirt tumbles around her shoulders. She wears no shoes. Farther, a fire roars in its hearth.  
  
Merrill is very lonely, and the night is dark.  
  
Gently, she lets herself sing a lullaby. Marethari used it when she was small, when magic frustrated her and others gazed on with misgivings. Their extra, their fool.  
  
The stranger smiles, and her eyes close.  
  
“How lovely,” a voice rasps in her ear, “thank you.”  
  
If it is only a dream, or magic, or even madness, it is the good kind. Merrill finds she regrets less, if only a little bit.


End file.
